Himself

For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him. COLOSSIANS 2:9–10

Simpson wrote a hymn which is still sung in places that have forgotten who wrote it, and its title is a single word: Himself. The verses trace a movement. They describe a man who once sought the blessing and now seeks the Lord; who once lived on feelings and now rests on the Word; who once wanted the gifts and now wants only the Giver; who once was always asking and now is always praising. Each verse makes the same turn — from something Christ provides to Christ Himself. It is autobiography. And it is the key to everything else in this book.

The exhausting pursuit of it

Simpson had spent his early ministry in a condition that many earnest Christians will recognise immediately. He was successful. He was orthodox. He worked to the point of physical collapse — more than once. And he was aware that something was missing, and set about looking for it in the way conscientious people do: by seeking a further experience. A deeper consecration. A fuller blessing. The power he could see in others and could not find in himself. The trouble with this pursuit is that each arrival is followed by a fresh emptiness. You obtain the blessing, and within weeks you need another. Your Christian life becomes a series of peaks with lengthening valleys between them, and your spiritual health comes to depend on how recently you were last at a convention. Simpson’s escape from this was not a better experience. It was the discovery that he had been asking for the wrong category of thing altogether.

Christ does not primarily give things

The insight, once stated, seems almost too simple to have cost so much. Christ does not chiefly dispense blessings, as a benefactor distributes gifts from a store. He gives Himself, and every blessing is contained within Him rather than handed out beside Him.

But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. 1 CORINTHIANS 1:30

Read that slowly. Paul does not say Christ gives us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption. He says Christ is made unto us these things. They are not commodities He supplies; they are what He is to us. To have Him is to have them, and to seek them apart from Him is to look for light somewhere other than the sun.

And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. JOHN 1:16

Simpson’s whole Fourfold Gospel rests on this. He did not preach salvation, sanctification, healing and the second coming as four topics. He preached Christ our Saviour, Christ our Sanctifier, Christ our Healer, Christ our Coming King — four relations to one Person. Take away the Person and you are left with four doctrines, which is a different and much poorer thing.

The test

There is a question Simpson’s teaching puts to a believer, and it is not comfortable. Suppose God gave you nothing further as long as you live. No answered prayer you are currently waiting on. No relief from the circumstance that is grinding you. No further usefulness, no growth you can detect, no experience to report. Would Christ Himself still be enough?

Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. PSALM 73:25

Most of us discover, asking that honestly, that a good deal of what we call love for God is love for what He does for us — and that our devotion rises and falls with His recent performance. That discovery is not a reason for despair. It is the beginning of the change Simpson’s hymn describes. He was careful to add that this does not make the blessings unimportant. God gives real gifts and means them to be enjoyed. The question is one of order. Seek the gift and you may get it and remain empty; seek the Giver and the gifts arrive as part of the package, held loosely, no longer able to make or break you.

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. MATTHEW 6:33

Where this leaves the restless

The practical relief in this teaching is considerable, and it is why Simpson mattered so much to the exhausted.

If what you need is an experience, then you must keep obtaining it, and you are permanently vulnerable — to your temperament, your health, your circumstances, the quality of last Sunday’s meeting. If what you need is a Person, and that Person indwells you and has promised never to leave, then your supply does not fluctuate even when your sense of it does.

For he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. HEBREWS 13:5

Simpson taught believers to stop asking for more of the Holy Spirit and to start recognising how much of them the Holy Spirit had. The problem was never the supply.

There is a way to test whether this has moved from theory into practice, and it takes about a week to apply. Listen to your own praying. Count how much of it asks Christ for something, and how much of it simply wants Him. Most of us find the second column almost empty, and we have been calling the first column a devotional life.

Leanness of soul

There is a verse in the Psalms which describes the danger of getting what you asked for, and Simpson returned to it often.

And he gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul. PSALM 106:15

Israel in the wilderness wanted meat. They complained until they got it. God granted the petition exactly as made, and something was lost in the granting that they had not thought to protect. The warning is not that God punishes us for asking. It is that a request granted on our own terms may leave us thinner than we were, because what we actually needed was not the thing but the God who was withholding it, and we were too busy negotiating to notice. Simpson applied this directly to the pursuit of spiritual experiences. A believer may set his heart on a particular blessing — an experience of power, a healing, a ministry, a resolution to some long trouble — and pursue it with real earnestness, and receive it, and find himself no closer to God than before. There is a leanness that can coexist with answered prayer. The remedy is not to stop asking. It is to want the Giver more than the gift, so that the answer, when it comes, arrives into a life already centred somewhere else.

Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. PSALM 37:4

That verse is often read as a promise that God will supply whatever we want if we are sufficiently devout. Simpson read it the other way round, and the grammar supports him: the delight comes first, and it is in the process of delighting in the Lord that our desires themselves are changed into things He is glad to give.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Ask the hard question directly: if God gave you nothing more, would Christ Himself be enough? Tell Him your honest answer rather than the correct one. 2. Audit a week of your prayers. What proportion sought a gift, and what proportion sought the Giver? 3. Identify one blessing you have been pursuing as though it were separable from Christ. Seek Him, and let it come as part of Him. 4. Notice whether your spiritual wellbeing depends on how recently you had a strong experience. If it does, that is the pattern Simpson escaped. 5. Spend fifteen minutes this week asking God for nothing at all, and simply attending to Him.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, I have wanted Your blessings more than I have wanted You, and I have called that devotion.

I have chased experiences and been empty a fortnight later. I have measured my spiritual health by how I felt on Sunday. Forgive me.

You are made unto me wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption. I do not need a supply of these things. I need You, and I have You.

Be my portion. Let me want the Giver, and let the gifts fall where they will. Amen.